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From the Chicago Tribune last week came the article “City to step up enforcement of bike laws“, reporting on a coalition of police and “bike ambassadors” who have been stopping bicyclists who break the law and offering a brief warning along with information and accessories to ensure the offense doesn’t happen again. The article points out that the specific offenses the police seemed to be after were nighttime riding without a white headlight, and failing to observe stop signs/traffic lights. Officers commented that these “lectures” were intended to change habits before heightened enforcement of traffic laws for bicyclists takes effect.
While I appreciate city officials launching an educational campaign about traffic laws prior to stepping up enforcement of those laws, and while I’m fully aware of the importance of using a headlight to make yourself seen at night, and of yielding the right-of-way to all types of traffic, I find myself slightly torn after reading this article.
In March, the Chicago Department of Transportation added the Bicycle Safety Ordinance to other traffic laws, an ordinance that outlines the responsibility of drivers to safely share the road with bicyclists, including specific points such as allowing no less than three feet of room when passing a bike, and increased fines for blocking a marked shared lane or bike lane. The Bicycle Safety Ordinance was an important step in Chicago’s Bike 2015 Plan, but it seems from the aforementioned article that law-enforcement officials will be focusing on citing bikers for dangerous travel-conditions rather than the vehicles that have more power to either increase or prevent these dangerous situations.
I don’t mean to come across as too critical of how Chicago traffic laws address bicyclists (though I do reserve some qualms of the automobile-centric laws), but even while biking just this morning I was passed by more than one car without being offered three-feet of room, and almost every day there is at least one truck or taxi or other vehicle that chooses to use the bike lane as an extra parking lane, forcing bikers to weave unexpectedly into other traffic. I have yet to see such dangerous offenses ticketed, so I wonder if stopping a bike who rolls through the stop-sign at a vacant intersection is the best use of an officer’s time while elsewhere another biker has likely been pushed into a dangerous situation by a careless driver.
As always, please share your thoughts in the comments. For a wonderful resource on bike laws, check out lawyer and bike-advocate Jim Freeman’s blog at http://chicagobikelaw.blogspot.com/
Each week I commute to work on my “Amsterdam” bike that was bought used last fall from a bike rental station in Millennium Park. I also use my dad’s twelve-year-old Saturn for weekly trips to the grocery store, out-of-town excursion, etc. While for many reasons I prefer riding my bike to my car, I’m not yet in a position to completely forgo the use of a personal automobile. So, though I limit the use of my car, I have two pre-owned vehicles that I maintain. In the past month, this has meant taking my car to the shop after a break in the exhaust pipe, and bringing my bike to the shop a couple times for broken spokes.
For the car, a broken exhaust pipe meant that every time I ran the car it was as if I had no muffler, so the car was incredibly loud and embarrassing to drive around town, and in no condition to get me back to Muskegon for a weekend trip. Getting it fixed meant that I had to leave work early to get to a trusted mechanic before they closed, and leaving the car overnight while the problem was diagnosed. A call came the next morning with a quote of somewhere near $600; I diverted the information to my dad, who knows more about the car than I do and was able to have them fix the most immediate problem for almost half of that. The car runs quieter now than it has before, but the other $300 worth of issues are still lurking in the undercarriage threatening further problems down the line.
For my bike, broken spokes meant a wobbly back wheel that could become dangerous to ride on for too extended periods of time. I was able to ride it to work, though I did avoid the prospect for a few days, and getting it fixed involved a quick trip to a trusted shop a few blocks from where I work, being able to explain the problem and understand what was needed myself, and picking it up about an hour and $20 later. I recently had a third spoke replaced this month, which could mean the rear rim is bent out of shape and that I might be needing to get the wheel re-built, a service that will cost around $150 and will completely fix the issue. It’s worth noting, though, that by riding my bike to work instead of taking the ‘el’, that $150 will be payed for by savings in two months’ time.
Now I realize that this comparison is not completely fair – I don’t use my bike to ride back to Muskegon for the weekend, for example, and a car is a much more complex machine that will require more specialized knowledge to understand and fix – but then doesn’t that bring about the question of how complex a tool we need for any particular task? I guess in the end I’m presenting this post as evidence of the benefits of using a simpler tool (the bike) for a simple task (traveling four-and-a-half miles) and saving the more complex tool, which requires more extensive repairs after the wear-and-tear of use, (the car) for use only when that tool is really needed.
Articles from around the internet (see links below) all seem to point to increased bike-ridership this year, and I’m pleased to count myself among those happy riders. Except when I’m not going home straight after work or if there’s chance of excessive wind or rain, I’ve been biking to work since April of this year. My commute is 4.5 – 5 miles each way depending on the route, and it takes about 30-40 minutes door-to-door. While it was initially pretty intimidating to bike down one of the major commuter corridors of the city, I quickly became more comfortable and confident in the ride and now much prefer it to my previous commute on the ‘el’.
Among the many benefits of biking is the chance to spend a half-hour or so before and after work simply focusing my attention on moving through the fresh air and enjoying a short time of freedom from the distractions of phones, the internet, and the plethora of advertisements with which the media is constantly bombarding me. I also have the satisfaction of knowing that this daily activity is not having a negative impact on the environment, and as an added bonus, I save nearly $20/week versus riding the ‘el’.
I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say about biking as the blog progresses, but for the meantime, check out the links below, and let me know if there’s anything in particular regarding bike commuting about which you’d like to hear more.
Additional reading:
Bike, Meet the City. City, This is the Bike.
Green Tip: How to Bike to Work
and for those who would rather walk, check out your area’s Walk Score
